Category: Recipes

For health-conscious parents, Halloween can be tricky, especially with the childhood obesity rate continuing to rise (did you know that the average American kid will accumulate 3500-7000 calories worth of candy in 1 night!). Watching your child collect and eat as many sugary treats as they can on a trick-or-treat adventure can be truly terrifying. But some may argue that this only happens once a year, so let kids be kids and allow them to create fun childhood memories.

Parenting often requires you to run errands with your kids in tow. And while no-one is particularly excited about such excursions, being prepared can make the world of difference – both to your sanity and your child’s happiness!

How to Get Your Kids to Try New Vegetables

A challenge for some, but a breeze for others. Getting your kids to eat healthy, wholesome, home-made food is the goal of every parent, but the reality is that more times than you care to admit, your child simply refuses to taste the plate of love you have placed in front of them. What gives?

By now, you must have heard about poke (if not already tried it), but what you may not have considered is that it’s a really good meal option for your children. Well firstly, it’s quick, easy and healthy, but secondly, it’s a great way to diversify your kids’ palates for a more varied diet.

Although poke has been around for centuries, it has recently gone through a bit of a revival period and has piggybacked onto the global success of sushi.

Kids are much more prone to dehydration than adults because their little bodies are not as efficient at cooling down. And experts warn that by the time kids are thirsty, they are already about 3% dehydrated.

As we all know, summer heat and humidity can be brutal, even in the shade. Therefore, our goal as parents is to ensure that each child is reaching their recommended daily fluid intake, but the amount of water kids require may surprise you; toddlers (ages 1-3 years) need about 4 cups of fluid per day, while older children should be drinking 5-7 cups (more if they are active)!

Childhood obesity is on the rise and it’s no wonder with all the convenience foods on the market; packed with artificial ingredients, sugar, preservatives and other horrible additives, getting kids to eat healthy, “real” food is often an uphill battle. And that’s why mums need all the help they can get!

Chocolate brownies don’t exactly help with the issue but if you’re going to give your kids a treat, why not make it healthier, especially if you can’t taste the difference? To get this right, we deployed one of the Meal Monsters’ secret techniques: hiding to hide veggies and wholesome ingredients in favourite snacks!

The chickpea is a fascinating little thing and I found myself suddenly intrigued by the name because it doesn’t really look like a chick!

Living in Dubai, chickpeas are a common thing – it is a core ingredient in Arab, Mediterranean, Mexican, Pakistani and Indian cuisine. Hummus is a popular daily dish that appears at dinner parties, kids parties, lunch boxes and basically everywhere else! It has even been recorded that 10% of all US households have hummus in their fridges.

We are now in late spring heading into summer. Here in Dubai, it is already getting pretty hot with temperatures already reaching 36’C during the day. And on melty days like these, there is nothing better than an ice lolly!

Pretty much all Western households have a bottle of ketchup in their fridge. Although it’s a staple condiment, I have never really thought that much about it until I recently went to visit my god-daughter at meal time – there was more ketchup on her plate than anything else! But what I found most interesting was that she would agree to have extra veg because it meant that she could justify having extra ketchup! And apparently, this is quite a normal scenario amongst kids.